Sooners QB Caleb Williams...

[the Q]

Oh you mean like college sports has always been, but hasn't been shared with the people actually making the money, the athletes?

If that were true the g league and cfl would be making more money than the college kids

 

[the Q]

It is 2022, stop looking at things like we are still in the 1960s, just because the NCAA still defines student-athletes as amateurs. The money star players generate for their universities is through the roof. It was long past time that players get to profit off all of their hard work beyond just free education. For every Caleb Williams, there are thousands of kids who will never see a dime beyond the scholarship and stipends they currently receive. The only insanity that needs to stop is people getting upset because a kid has a chance to make money while playing a college sport, especially so in football where a playing career could be ended due to injury at any moment long before they can cash in on any pro money.

Also, last I checked, there is no minor league system for football and there never will be while the NFL has one for free with college football.

And you think the nfl should be getting a free ride?

 

[the Q]

Without the players, "big brand University" wouldn't have a product to put on the field. The coaches wouldn't have anyone to coach, the sponsors wouldn't have anyone to sponsor, and the networks wouldn't have the sport(s) to broadcast. NIL was long overdue.

Don't like it, stick to watching high school sports.

You could just move the lower level kids up and the laundry would still rule

 

[the Q]

Repeating what is doesn’t invalidate the basic fact that they were and are amateurs, that without big brand University names on their backs they would be making nothing and playing in the equivalent of a backwater farm league for peanuts. The rule should be no money period other than a small living stipend for all players. Otherwise, go try out for your local semi pro team. The insanity has to stop before it destroys the game.

That first part is an uncomfortable truth people don’t want to accept

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Repeating what is doesn’t invalidate the basic fact that they were and are amateurs, that without big brand University names on their backs they would be making nothing and playing in the equivalent of a backwater farm league for peanuts. The rule should be no money period other than a small living stipend for all players. Otherwise, go try out for your local semi pro team. The insanity has to stop before it destroys the game.

Totally agree. College football needs to go back to a strict amateur model. Players don't like it? Go play semi-pro football after high school.

Without the players, "big brand University" wouldn't have a product to put on the field. The coaches wouldn't have anyone to coach, the sponsors wouldn't have anyone to sponsor, and the networks wouldn't have the sport(s) to broadcast. NIL was long overdue.

Don't like it, stick to watching high school sport

College football would be just fine without all that. Players get a full ride to college . . . enough. Want more? Get a job in the University bookstore.

 

[AD DB Burner]

If that were true the g league and cfl would be making more money than the college kids

If there was more exposure for those leagues they would be getting paid more.

And you think the nfl should be getting a free ride?

No, I don't, but they also have zero incentive or reason to change their current model.

 

[AD DB Burner]

Totally agree. College football needs to go back to a strict amateur model. Players don't like it? Go play semi-pro football after high school.


College football would be just fine without all that. Players get a full ride to college . . . enough. Want more? Get a job in the University bookstore.

Or, ya know, the kid can just make a few sponsored social media posts and get paid instead of adding a part-time job on top of the full-time commitment to his or her sport and classes.

Do you think that Paige and Azzi should tear up their NIL deals and get a job at the Dairy Barn/Bookstore instead to preserve that precious amateur status?

 

[noeynox]

And big brand name universities would be perfectly fine. They would continue doing what their main misssions are, educating students and carrying out research on a huge variety of things from anthropology to zoology. You might be shocked to know that most of the top national universities don’t play big time football. In basketball most are at best mid-majors. Many, MIT, UCHIGAGO, Carnegie-Mellon, Tufts, are D3. So seems to me the outcome is pretty one sided if the schools decided to eliminate teams and big time athletics. As to “all the money” the schools get, the Uniersity of Michigan’s annual general fund budget is over $2 billion. UConn’s is 1.6 billion. UConn has another $1.4 billion for other university affiliated entities like The Medical facilities and I would bet Michigan has at least that much in other budgets. Really athletics are couch cushion money For a major university.

While true, would coaches and athletic directors make millions without the players?

 

[phillionaire]

This thread is full of a bunch of haters that are mad that exploited athletes are now slightly less exploited, have a little more power and can make money now.

 

[businesslawyer]

This thread is full of a bunch of haters that are mad that exploited athletes are now slightly less exploited, have a little more power and can make money now.

This doesn't have to be either/or. I don't have a problem fairly compensating players. Does that mean that we need to have rules that allow a continuous bidding war, where every year players enter the portal and see how much NIL money they can get from their school or others and then decides? Pro leagues aren't that mercenary. Players can't sell themselves to the highest bidder after their first year at the Knicks or Red Sox.

So why can't one support college athletes being paid without supporting this particular system that will be the death of college athletics as we know it?

 

[Pudge]

Totally agree. College football needs to go back to a strict amateur model. Players don't like it? Go play semi-pro football after high school.


College football would be just fine without all that. Players get a full ride to college . . . enough. Want more? Get a job in the University bookstore.

Phony

There's nothing about this uniquely American concept of College Sports that will ever return to Teddy Roosevelt think. WE made this monster. Us. Buying the jerseys and wearing the colors. In the smelly locker rooms I remember when my Dad was coaching to the MSG Big East tourney, there really doesn't have to be college sports; except that it makes the whole damn University thing more of a great rite of passage learning experience and holds graduates into their clubby ties for a lifetime. You cannot put a value on what has happened.

In a World where America competes with rising strength powers, the fact that 29 of the top 50 World Universities are a American comparative advantage. It ain't all MIT & Chicago. Many many are the Public LandGrant Universities that are more powerful than ever. And I would opine that the SPORT component is glue for lots of other things that make these places special.

 

[phillionaire]

This doesn't have to be either/or. I don't have a problem fairly compensating players. Does that mean that we need to have rules that allow a continuous bidding war, where every year players enter the portal and see how much NIL money they can get from their school or others and then decides? Pro leagues aren't that mercenary. Players can't sell themselves to the highest bidder after their first year at the Knicks or Red Sox.

So why can't one support college athletes being paid without supporting this particular system that will be the death of college athletics as we know it?

Honestly I don't care. Let them get their money. Sports are just entertainment.

 

[AD DB Burner]

This doesn't have to be either/or. I don't have a problem fairly compensating players. Does that mean that we need to have rules that allow a continuous bidding war, where every year players enter the portal and see how much NIL money they can get from their school or others and then decides? Pro leagues aren't that mercenary. Players can't sell themselves to the highest bidder after their first year at the Knicks or Red Sox.

So why can't one support college athletes being paid without supporting this particular system that will be the death of college athletics as we know it?

College athletics as we know it died when TV money drove conference realignment and traditional rivalries were thrown out the window across the college landscape.

Cherry picking one player and applying his situation to the entire transfer portal isn’t fair to Caleb Williams, who never mentioned NIL money as reasons for entering the portal. It was the OU AD who brought it up, which makes the whole situation even stranger because I don’t recall seeing them say a word when Spencer Rattler decided to enter the portal.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

All this is payments above the board instead backroom payments.

Why couldn't a UConn grad own Google, Yahoo or GE

Priceline okay? Scott Case

Scott Case​

Business
Timothy “Scott” Case, or T. Scott Case is a technologist, entrepreneur, and inventor, and was founding CTO of Priceline.com, the internet travel service that reached one billion dollars in annual sales in less than 24 months. As Chief Technology Officer, Case was responsible for building the technology that enabled Priceline’s hyper-growth…

• 
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• Born: Mar 14, 1970 (age 51)
• Founded: Priceline.com · Main Street Genome · Upside Business Travel

​

 

[BlueMAB]

And big brand name universities would be perfectly fine. They would continue doing what their main misssions are, educating students and carrying out research on a huge variety of things from anthropology to zoology. You might be shocked to know that most of the top national universities don’t play big time football. In basketball most are at best mid-majors. Many, MIT, UCHIGAGO, Carnegie-Mellon, Tufts, are D3. So seems to me the outcome is pretty one sided if the schools decided to eliminate teams and big time athletics. As to “all the money” the schools get, the Uniersity of Michigan’s annual general fund budget is over $2 billion. UConn’s is 1.6 billion. UConn has another $1.4 billion for other university affiliated entities like The Medical facilities and I would bet Michigan has at least that much in other budgets. Really athletics are couch cushion money For a major university.

You wasted your time with this response, i'll not waste mine explaining why.

 

[BlueMAB]

Totally agree. College football needs to go back to a strict amateur model. Players don't like it? Go play semi-pro football after high school.


College football would be just fine without all that. Players get a full ride to college . . . enough. Want more? Get a job in the University bookstore.

I'm sorry that the game has passed you by.

 

[BlueMAB]

This doesn't have to be either/or. I don't have a problem fairly compensating players. Does that mean that we need to have rules that allow a continuous bidding war, where every year players enter the portal and see how much NIL money they can get from their school or others and then decides? Pro leagues aren't that mercenary. Players can't sell themselves to the highest bidder after their first year at the Knicks or Red Sox.

So why can't one support college athletes being paid without supporting this particular system that will be the death of college athletics as we know it?

what you said doesn't make what he said any less true.

 

[businesslawyer]

Honestly I don't care. Let them get their money. Sports are just entertainment.

But entertainment has to care about its product. How entertaining is college sports going to be if, every year, Kentucky buys the best five players from the prior year, and Duke the next five, etc., etc?

 

[businesslawyer]

what you said doesn't make what he said any less true.

I didn't say what he said wasn't true. Don't I get myself in enough trouble on the board without people needing to try to guide me to it?

 

[businesslawyer]

College athletics as we know it died when TV money drove conference realignment and traditional rivalries were thrown out the window across the college landscape.

Cherry picking one player and applying his situation to the entire transfer portal isn’t fair to Caleb Williams, who never mentioned NIL money as reasons for entering the portal. It was the OU AD who brought it up, which makes the whole situation even stranger because I don’t recall seeing them say a word when Spencer Rattler decided to enter the portal.

I'm not saying anything bad about the young man. I don't think poorly about the young man. He is absolutely entitled to maximize his earning potential within the rules made available to him. Whether he actually does that or not is up to him. It doesn't change the fact that the rules are idiotic and will kill the product.

And I fully agree with you that conference realignment has damaged the product in my view, but given that I root for the single school that got screwed the most, I'm not sure that is how everyone sees it.

 

[phillionaire]

But entertainment has to care about its product. How entertaining is college sports going to be if, every year, Kentucky buys the best five players from the prior year, and Duke the next five, etc., etc?

if that starts happening I might change how I feel. I’m not going to hate on 18-22 year olds trying to do what’s best for them in a system that gives everyone surrounding them 6+ figure salaries.

 

[SubbaBub]

For athletes, sports has become a defacto part of their education and is now inseparable from what we used to assume was the mission of higher education. Kids pick schools because of their athletic opportunities. While we at some level all assumed this was the case for the elite recruits, the NIL movement has dismissed any notion that it is limited to just the top guys. You've already had Wyoming making it clear they are going to pay, ahem, find NIL opportunities for FB players that want to come there. Oklahoma just acknowledged that they are looking to raise funds in the event they can make a counteroffer to keep their star QB.

I agree with BL that this is the new normal, but that doesn't mean there can't be rules put in place to put a cost on these types of decisions. Covid is fueling this year's frenzy, but the going back to losing a year of eligibility to transfer is a perfectly acceptable compromise. Reforming the recruiting calendar can also help. Create a separate NLI date for transfers. Whether you let freshmen commit first or transfers is up to them.

I believe the market will also settle things down after enough players find the portal to be a dry hole, even ending many careers. The NIL money will consolidate at the top to where the lesser schools will all be working with about the same pot of money. If some whale wants to fund the University of Delaware or Jackson State, I doubt that will make many waves.

More likely is that the rotation at the top of the food chain will accelerate. Players will start to expect the money to keep rolling in and will raise hell when their deal gets pulled for some new recruit. Those teams will have trouble winning consistently. It's just another variable that will separate coaches and schools.

UConn needs to get the law changed to allow the school to help their athletes with NIL deals.

 

[HardFacts]

Totally agree. College football needs to go back to a strict amateur model. Players don't like it? Go play semi-pro football after high school.


College football would be just fine without all that. Players get a full ride to college . . . enough. Want more? Get a job in the University bookstore.

Great Idea! Only it would be an NCAA Violation !!!

 

[UConnJim]

Remember, you can only transfer 1x without being required to sit out, but I believe grad transfers are an exception. So, you have to be careful if you decide to enter the portal. What would have happened to Dillon Gabriel if he had started classes at UCLA on Monday and on Thursday he finds out Caleb Williams is also transferring to UCLA?

Also, I think some people have a misconception of the portal. The portal does not just include football players that are academically eligible, with no discipline problems, and good enough to be an FBS starter, but there are many kids that their coach decided they couldn't play at the FBS level and the coach is pushing them out, have discipline problems, or kids with academic issues. That is why ~50% of FBS kids that enter the portal don't find a new home. I think this is why you are seeing teams recruit the top Ivy kids in the transfer portal who are grad transfers as the Ivies don't allow redshirting, the kids are experienced, and they have good academics.

 

[BlueMAB]

Great Idea! Only it would be an NCAA Violation !!!

Please don't confuse him with facts.